


Dear John

by mkhockeygurl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Army AU, Fluff, In more ways than one, Johnlock - Freeform, Love Letters, M/M, Oops, They found love in a hopeless place, Two men in love, i googled them bc i never had them damn they look good, jaffa cakes, john is fricken hot bi captain, lets just say the desert sun isnt the only thing making him sweat, letters live, love wins in then end or does it, sherlock is gay and a hot mess, sherlock is sappy, trigger warning: suicide, yep I said it, yes i referenced lyrics deal with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-06 08:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8743495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mkhockeygurl/pseuds/mkhockeygurl
Summary: A series of love letters written by Sherlock to John after the war separates them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hideouspumpkin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hideouspumpkin/gifts).



> Based off of a heartbreaking letter read at letters live this past year. I'll pop the link at the beginning of the fic, you'll be able to read the original letter and watch someone read it out loud. When I read the letter I was heartbroken, when I watched the reading I cried. 
> 
> This is a belated birthday gift for a dear friend of mine, hideouspumpkin. Enjoy, I hope it's not too angsty! ;)

Here is the [original letter](http://letterslive.com/letter/sleep-well-my-love/).

* * *

 

October 31, 2006

Dear John,                                                                        

I rather hate sentiment. Its controlling, and blinds oneself from important tasks at hand. Before you, I found no use for it but after you, it became my drug. Every pore in my body soaked it up. Without you here, I feel lost. I miss you. 

Love,

SH

* * *

 

November 30, 2006

Dear John,                                                                                                                                          

My heart aches every time I hear your name. When someone laughs and it sounds like you, I always look up but it’s always a stranger. When I wander the aisles of Tesco late at night and catch sight of the damned Jaffa cakes, I remember us eating the whole pack in the middle of the deserts of Afghanistan. One of mine had sand on it so you had carefully blown it off and winked. I need to see you, the twinkle in your eyes, the crinkle when you wink. I need you.

Love,

SH

* * *

 

December 31, 2006

Dear John,                                                                                                                                      

You would like the landlady of 221B Baker St. Mrs. Hudson is a feisty old lady. She won’t admit it but she coddles me, and I let her. She brings me tea and biscuits and she dusts the flat. I’ve been doing experiments with toe nails in the kitchen and she was kind enough to ignore it, I do feel that if you were here it would be a different story. I imagine you commanding me to clean the whole flat with bleach. I would ignore you of course.

It’s New Years Eve, Mrs. Hudson invited people over. Garry…Graham…maybe Greg I think, yes, Greg Lestrade from Scotland Yard. I’ve worked a case here and there with him. Molly Hooper, she’s the pathologist at Bart’s. Mycroft, pffft…I do hope he doesn’t show. It’s all so tedious. All I really want is any evening alone with you. I would play my violin and you would sit in front of the fire place, finally happy that the war zone was behind you.

I don’t want this year to end. I want to turn back time to the hot and sandy day I met you in Afghanistan. Is that too much to ask?

Love,

SH

* * *

 

January 1, 2007 

Dear John,                                                                                                                                          

People make wishes as the clock strikes 12. If I knew they would come true, I would make them too. I would wish that you were here. I would wish that I could kiss you until our lungs would be burning for air. I wish that us meeting in Afghanistan would not change but that our tour end dates would. I wish we could have left that sandy hell together. I wish that you were here to hold me when the nightmares of failed missions haunt me, you would lock me in an embrace and run your callused fingers through my curls and I would focus on the vibration of your chest as you uttered loving nothingness and once the shudders had passed we would fall asleep on my sheets whose thread count was unheard of in the army.

I wish you could reply. Not having you answer is killing me.

Love,

SH

* * *

 

January 31, 2007

Dear John,                                                                                                                                          

I think people are starting to worry about me. I don’t work cases. I don’t do experiments. I feel empty. Even Mycroft came to check up on me.

I do believe that he thinks I’ll start using again. I never told you, but when I was in uni, studying chemistry, everything began to pile up. My mind was full and my thoughts a non stop carousel. A friend introduced me to a liquid that brought calm. I became addicted. Mycroft finally gave me an ultimatum, I could die in a dark alley or I could get cleaned up and go back to studying. The catch, I would have to join the army. I hated him for a long time because of that. It changed on the day I met you, he in a way brought us together.

I promise I won’t use again. I can’t. You complete me and make me feel like no drug has ever made me feel. I want you here, I need you here. If that can’t happen, maybe I should just come to you.

Love,

SH

* * *

 

February 28, 2007

Dear John,                                                                                                                                         

I read a pointless book about constellations for you, fair warning, I’ll delete the information soon. I do have to say that the starry nights in London are nothing like the secluded army base in Afghanistan.

Do you see the stars where you are? Do you think of me when you see them?

Fuck, I sound like a love struck sod. But the evidence does not lie. I am a love struck sod; love struck for you.

Love,

SH

* * *

 

March 31, 2007

Dear John,                                                                                                                                                          

This is me looking back on the best day of my life. March 31, 2006, an anniversary, a birthday, a day that is etched into my very soul. We were stationed in Afghanistan. I heard you yelling commands about improper suture techniques and then you barged out of the medical tent and collided into me. I reached out to keep us both from stumbling and I will admit I held on to you longer than was socially acceptable. It was as if both of us forgot how to speak. I remember being entranced by the mischievous twinkle in your eyes, the golden streaks in your sun-kissed hair, and the few freckles that dotted your nose. You casually looked me over, then at my hand that was still gripping your upper arm, flicked your tongue over your chapped lips and cleared your throat. You apologized for running into me and then turned away before I could get your name.

Later, in the evening, I was in the cafeteria tent. It had been reorganized to accommodate for a pool table and a makeshift bar. Some of my men where drinking but I never felt the need to join them. They had such dull conversations. I was sitting in a corner nursing a cheap warm beer when you walked in. You cleaned up nicely, instead of the bloody scrubs from before, you were dressed in casual fatigues. As you ordered a beer at the bar you looked around and stopped when you noticed me. You came over and apologized again. We started talking. You were John Watson, a captain, and medical doctor in the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers. I was Sherlock Holmes, a lieutenant in the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. My men and I had just arrived the day before and that’s why we hadn’t seen each other before today. We made small talk and never once did I find it annoying or unpleasant. I deduced who of the soldiers in the tent were having affairs with senior officers and you said I was brilliant. Our cheap beers were finished and I made a move to leave, you told me to sit, you yourself went back to the bar and came back with a much more expensive whisky. 'To celebrate' you said, it was your birthday. After several shots you began to joke about utter nonsense and I might have giggled, yes, John you (and a little liquid courage) made me giggle. We ended up using each other for support as we made our ways to our sleeping quarters, our men were good at never bringing up the fact that both the captain and lieutenant had been pissed out their minds.

I dropped you off at your makeshift room. For a second, the haze of alcohol disappeared and we really looked at each other. Careful, calculating, trying to see what the other was thinking. Then in a whisper almost too quite for me to hear you told me you liked me and told me stay alive long enough for us to get to know each other. Only when you closed your door did I whisper back that I liked you too. 

It was a four-month whirlwind after that. Whenever we were both at camp we ate dinner together. I recounted tales of insane terrorist plots. You gave me a tour of the medical tent and let me watch gory surgery’s. I “borrowed” your jacket, and was reprimanded for trying to use your rank to skip the line for the small store that had jaffa cakes from back home. You tried to act angry but when we were alone you threw the biscuits in the corner of the room, snogged me senseless and reminded me why your rank was Captain.

We had so many late night walks through the desert under the middle eastern stars. One night there was a downpour and I tried to shade you with my jacket. You flung it away, pulled me close and held my face in your hands, running your rough thumbs almost reverently along my cheekbones. The rain soaked us through but your focus was on me, and only me. Then you kissed me, first soft and hesitant, sun-chapped lips upon even more chapped lips, then with more force and lust. We stood there for a long time just holding each other close, wishing the moment would never end.

Some of the boys had guitars and on a cool night they made a fire and sat around it, strumming tunes from back home. We joined them and occasionally shared a sip of strong middle eastern liquor as it went around the circle in a flask. Some men got up and started dancing to the stringed music. By then every one except the posh “arse fuckers” as you liked to call them, or rather our senior officers, knew that we were an item. So when I tugged you up to dance not one man blinked an eye, if anything they were happy for us. I pulled you close as shadows and firelight danced across your weather worn face. You wrapped your arm around my waist and I held your other hand in mine as we swayed back and forth. I laughed at the sheer concentration on your face when at first I realized you didn’t know how to dance and were trying hard to not step on my feet. I leaned close to you and whispered for you to relax and follow me. You shivered and follow me you did. I distinctly remember not getting any sleep that night.

I had a month left on my tour. You had four. We planned to retire and get an apartment in London. You would do locum work as a doctor and I would help out a friend of mine at Scotland yard.

The day before I was set to leave I managed to find a private room. We spent the whole day and night in there. I told you I loved you, you held me close and I remember feeling the trails of tears wind down my back. We woke in the early morning, limbs intertwined. We refused to speak, as if it would stop time. The time came for me to get ready. You silently helped me pack. An officer came to say my transportation had arrived. Once he had left, I turned to you. I analyzed and broke you into pieces, giving each piece a place in my mind. You told me to stop and just kiss you already. I pressed up against you, chest to chest, thighs to thighs, I traced the lines of your cheekbones, your eyes, your neck with reverent kisses. We ground against each other as I found your mouth and I worshiped it, I worshiped you. Our combined tears mixed in with our desperate groans as we said our final good bye. You wiped my face with your sleeve, whispered in my ear that you loved me back and to never forget that, and pulled me in for a tight hug. I hated hugs before you, any personal contact really, but this, this I wanted to never end. With one last hurried kiss I grabbed my bags and left.

As I was getting onto the chopper that was to take me away, you ran up to me. You gave me an extra set of your dog tags and your last words to me were “I’ll come home and we’ll be together forever.”

I came home to London on August 20th, I found an apartment for us on Baker St. (Mrs. Hudson seemed rather excited when I told her that my boyfriend would be coming to live with me), and I managed to bribe my brother into updating me on your location every week. I was back for less than two months when I got the news. Apparently fate was against us. Your team had been rushed into a hot zone where a convoy had been blow up with mines. Two choppers left, only one came back, you weren’t on that one. According to the reports they declared you MIA. They have yet to declare you dead, and it tears me apart because a shred of me is still hoping.

And so, John, I hope that wherever you are, you should know that you are the best thing that ever happened to me. I have only and will only ever love you. You became my better half, my life line, and some days when things get rough I wish I could join you. Today would have been your birthday and also our one-year anniversary. I had big plans. I bought a ring right after I arrived home, I was going to propose, because you turned me into a soppy ass of a man. Now, I wear it around my neck along with your dog tags and I’ll wear it as long as I can to remind me of what we had.

Rest in peace.

Love,

Sherlock W.S. Holmes

* * *

 

* * *

 

_Sherlock read over the letter he had just written, then with shaking hands he folded it in three and slid it into an envelope. He dropped his gaunt face into his eerily thin hand, a broken sigh escaped between the slit of his pale lips. This would be the last one. He just couldn’t write another. At first, after he heard of John’s fate, he had written the letters as a coping mechanism, imaging that he wasn’t dead and that at any point he would come home and everything would be okay._

_Now it just brought pain. A pain that reached into the depths of his soul, screaming at him that his John was dead, that he was never coming home, that it was all over._

_Sherlock got up from his chair with a groan, he had let himself waste away, he looked worse than when he was addicted to Heroin. His face had sunken in, he was pale as a ghost and stick thin, and his body's energy had depleted. He shuffled over to a chair he had bought for John and dropped the envelope on top of a pile of other older envelopes, dating back to October 31, 2006. He clenched his hands at his side and a single tear rolled down his face. That’s when he decided. It’s over. He would so much more rather join John wherever he was then having to spend another day replaying their memories like a broken record._

_He went to his desk and pulled his hand gun out of a concealed drawer. His hands began to shake even more as he released the safety and turned to look at the pile of letters on what would have been John’s chair. He whispered John’s empty promise, “I’ll come home and we’ll be together forever.”_

* * *

 

_Mrs. Hudson was getting worried. Sherlock had become more withdrawn than he had ever been since he moved in over five months ago. No one realised how close he was to the boyfriend that never made it home. She assumed it had been special relationship just from the way he had boasted and smiled as he talked about John and how he would join him at Baker St. at the end of his tour. She cocked her ear and looked at the ceiling with concern, she hadn’t heard a sound from flat B in quite a while and decided it was high time to go check up on the heart broken man._

_Just as she reached the stairs up to Sherlock’s flat Mrs. Hudson was startled when the front door bell rang three times. She muttered as she opened the door slowly, “Use the bloody knocker you about scared me to death…” She screamed as the person on the stoop was revealed._

_Sherlock lifted the gun to his head and curled his finger around the trigger. As he went to end his existence Mrs. Hudson’s shrill scream resonated from downstairs. A split second. Then he heard Mrs. Hudson’s voice again, this time more of a yell filled with desperation, “Sherlock come quickly!”_

_Sherlock slipped the safety on, dropped the gun on his desk and rushed downstairs. He stopped suddenly at the bottom and almost slid right on his arse. His mouth widened in shock and he felt the need to pinch himself. Had he actually killed himself already? Was this where you ended up after death? It must be._

_His trance was broken by a rough emotion filled voice, “Sherlock, it’ really me.”_

_“John!” His voice cracked as Sherlock stumbled into Johns outstretched arms. A sob tore from his throat, and then another. Mrs. Hudson was forgotten as the two reunited men mixed tears and kissed as if the world were ending. She slipped into her flat and if you looked closely, she too might have been crying._

_Sherlock, love, I-I..” His voice broke so instead John showed his boyfriend what he couldn’t say. With his eyes he showed him the hell he had been through, with his mouth he showed him that he only survived because Sherlock was his lifeline, with his hands he showed him that he was sorry, sorry for making Sherlock think he was dead, sorry for any pain he caused._

_“John, before you came, just now…I-I was going to…I’m so sorry I didn’t know…I thought. Dead…MIA…I just couldn’t live without you anymore, I couldn’t…”_

_The doctor’s eyes widened as he understood what Sherlock was trying to say. Tears slipped down his face and he pulled Sherlock in close and held him, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. “Oh my love, I am so sorry, I won’t ever let us be separated again, I am here now, I’m home and now we can be together forever…”_

 


End file.
